


I'm Still Comparing Your Past To My Future

by Nyxelestia



Series: Abandoned or Hiatus [8]
Category: Big Hero 6 (2014)
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Burns, Discussion of Sexual Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapping, Manipulation, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Multiple, Physical Therapy, Self-Destruction, Self-Harm, Tadashi Hamada Lives, evil author
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 14:42:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14215389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyxelestia/pseuds/Nyxelestia
Summary: In the chaotic light from the burning building, Tadashi looked almost asleep – save for all the burns covering him, the blood all over his face, and his little brother sobbing in terrified relief over him. Eyes burning from the smoke and the failure, Robert turned his head away. Someone in an EMT uniform appeared above him and said something, but Robert had no idea what, and couldn’t care less.After the microbots saved their lives in the showcase fire, Tadashi wasn't surprised to see Callaghan gravitate toward Hiro. When his gut churned at them working on a private project together, Tadashi dismissed it as envy over his little brother's monopoly on their mentor's attention. Callahan had lost his daughter, and Hiro had no memory of their father — Tadashi could not begrudge them this, right?Except instead of thriving under his idol's tutelage, Hiro seemed to withdraw from everyone around him. Tadashi dug deeper, hoping to find out what was causing his brother and his mentor to pull away from everyone.Instead, he found Yokai.





	I'm Still Comparing Your Past To My Future

**Author's Note:**

> Big Hero 6 ate my brain and this is the result.
> 
>  **Please heed the tags, and be aware that more content warnings may be added in the future.** This is gonna be a dark story, ya'll.  >:)
> 
>  
> 
>   
>  ~~May eventually crossover with Winter Wolves.~~  
> 

Robert Callaghan hadn’t planned for this.

He was initially just happy to see Krei unable to get his hands on Tadashi’s brother’s new tech – especially when the invention relied so much on his own work from so long ago.

Wishing the Hamadas a good night and watching them walk away to celebrate, Robert had taken a closer look at the microbots, impressed by Hiro’s work. Genius ran in the family, but where Tadashi’s strength lay in his programming, Hiro’s strength rested in hardware.

He looked forward to teaching the former bot-fighter, even if he was likely to be an erratic student (if some of Tadashi’s ranting was anything to go by).

But he would be here. Here, and developing this technology and broadening its applications under Robert’s tutelage. God, so many uses implied and shown in that brief demonstration alone. Now here Robert wasm already thinking of all the other things it could be used for, things he was glad Krei couldn’t do, things he would do if he could have this-

_If._

Maybe not so much of an ‘if’.

He hadn’t even started the fire, really, so much as failed to prevent it.

Opportunity wasn’t knocking — it was pounding down the door, and Robert answered the call.

When the fire alarms started blaring, he ventured deeper into the building. He ran against the tide of students and investors and attendees, opening every door and looking inside.

Everyone saw him checking for stragglers. No one would suspect the real reason he wanted the building to be empty as soon as possible.

He hadn’t planned this at all. The pathway to justice presented itself, like a sign from the universe encouraging him to avenge his Abigail…

…only for him to put on the neurocranial transmitter and realize that despite how easy Hiro made controlling thousands of robots look, it was anything but.

The flames were building up, the building was crumbling, and the fire would soon reach the experiments. As Robert had waited until he had enough cover from the flames before making his move, the exits were already obscured and blocked off.

He was already struggling to breathe, air too hot and filled with smoke.

As the microbot control continued to evade him, Robert stared in despair. He tried to ring them around himself, except he couldn’t seem to get more than a few hundred to move the way he wanted to.

He needed to protect himself enough to survive this fire.

Vision darkening as his lungs breathed in more smoke than air, he fell to his knees. Even crouching and making himself as small as possible rendered him unprotected by the microbots, and he was going to die and at least he would get to be with Abigail again-

“Professor!” a familiar voice shouted from the flames. He squinted to see the figure of a lean young man running through the burning room. “Professor Callaghan!”

Either Tadashi had learned to teleport, or Robert was missing time, because his top student appeared at his side. “Professor, what’re you doing?”

“S’gonna blow,” Robert murmured, gesturing through the smoke in the direction of the experiment he’d been counting on for the bulk of his cover – and which would now be his doom, his and his protégé’s and _what the hell had he been thinking-_ “Can’t…” Can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t- “Get out.”

“Professor-”

“G- _go_!” Robert cried out, trying to shove Tadashi away but breaking down coughing. Tadashi needed to get out of here, Robert needed to hide, to leave, those bots, the transmitter on his head-

-that Tadashi was pulling off, oh no, he knew, he saw, _he knew_ -

“Good idea!” Tadashi cried out, yelling to be heard over the crackling flames and collapsing exhibitions. The student smiled ruefully down at the puddle of microbots around them, also crouching down. “But it-” Cough. “-takes a lot of practice.”

Robert slumped forward, which garnered a surprised yell from Tadashi. The young man must’ve thought he was passing out. He had no idea that Robert was slumped in relief. Tadashi only thought Robert was trying to survive with a showcase project.

He had no idea that Robert had been trying to steal it, and Robert wasn't about to disabuse him of that notion.

As Robert watched, the microbots flowed out of the bin in front of them, swirling around them. “Even I can only manage about _ha_ -” Tadashi coughed, slumping against Robert.

“Tadashi!”

“-h-half a bin,” Tadashi finished. The microbots were forming – not a sphere, exactly, so much as a spherical clump around them.

“Is that enough for both of us?” Robert demanded, watching as the stream of microbots coming out of the bin thinned and trailed off. “If it's not-”

“I’m not leaving you behind!” Tadashi shouted, as the lump closed around them.

The air was still filled with smoke and the metal enclosure seemed to make the heat even worse. But now, there were no more flames or debris reaching them. Tadashi hoisted Robert up, slinging one arm over his shoulder while wrapping the other around Robert’s waist. He could hear sirens and screaming in the distance, and looking down, he swatted at the patches of clothes on fire.

“The east door,” Robert murmured, as Tadashi started moving them forward.

“What?”

“…three front doors…” he murmured, struggling to keep his eyes open. “Our left.” Baking in this metallic bubble was better than burning directly, but not by much. He heart was pounding out of his chest in a desperate attempt to keep his body running despite having so little oxygen to work with. “Least…blocked…”

Tadashi nodded. “I see! Let’s” He coughed, long and hard and terrifying. But he continued, “Let’s go!”

The path was treacherous, and they fell twice even with Tadashi using the microbots to clear the way for them somewhat.

All for naught, because with the door in sight, as Tadashi tried to move forward, Robert had to hold him back when he heard the ominous crack from their side.

The falling support beam missed Tadashi by less than a foot.

Robert jerked away and almost dropped his student when Tadashi screamed right in Robert’s ear. The flames from the falling pillar still hitting them, and adrenaline could only go so far as pain relief.

But it was all they had.

“H-How-” He coughed. “Tadashi-”

“R’fessor,” Tadashi coughed out. This close, he could hear Tadashi's whimpering, and forced himself not to look down and see just how much damage the young man had suffered.

“Almost there,” Robert insisted.

The young man blinked, the trails of tears down his face seeming to glow as they reflected the flames around them.

“Just get-” He coughed. “-us over that pillar-” Another cough. “I’ll get us out.”

Tadashi nodded, clinging to Robert for life as he squinted at the pillar.

For a moment, he stood there, and Robert feared the young man was about to pass out again. But then he heard the sounds of clicking and rattling, and realized Tadashi was recalling the scattered microbots toward them.

It was a rough sound. Half the bots were disfigured and broken, and not even fully mobile so much as just melted onto the ones that were. But still, they came towards the two men…sort of.

The microbots wavered, scattered, trailed around, seemed to go in circles. Was the transmitter damaged? Was it because of the head wound belied by the blood trailing down Tadashi's face?

“Focus, Ha-” Another cough. “Hamada,” Robert continued, desperate to keep his voice even like when he had to calm down panicking students before exams. “Forget everything-” He coughed. “-everything elsss…” He trailed off in a hiss as the adrenaline seemed to fade and the pain started to hit.

That, however, seemed to motivate Tadashi, as he nodded and glared ahead at the pillar.

Robert could feel the flames approaching them from behind. He moved behind Tadashi, sheltering the young man from the flames as he concentrated on moving the little army of bots that would get them to safety.

There weren’t that many left. Probably only about as many as Robert had managed in his arrogant attempt from a few minutes before. Half of them were melted, or glowing with their own heat, most limping along with the tide.

But Robert supposed that was part of the beauty of this invention: that not all of them needed to be perfectly functional – just enough of them.

The mass of dark gray surged forward, wrapping around the pillar like a blood pressure cuff from hell. It smothered the flames – not entirely, but enough.

Then the mass rippled, into distinct waves. Robert guessed Tadashi was trying to make some kind of ladder or stepcase for them, and hadn’t quite managed it.

But it was close enough for him to work with. He clambered up, dragging Tadashi behind him as the man focused on keeping the microbots stable enough to climb over.

On the other side, Tadashi scrambled to get the last of the microbots around them in something approaching a bubble.

The front doors’ glass was melting or shattered, and coated in smoke, but Robert could just see yellow-clad figures approaching it — and he wasn’t the only one.

“We’re ‘ _re_!” Tadashi yelled for attention, as he also saw figures approaching through the smoky glass. “Over-”

A loud _fwooom_ drowned out anything else Tadashi said, the microbots shuddering as they were both rocked forward by an explosion.

The very one that Robert had predicted, had counted on, had all but engineered to happen.

They were thrown right through the glass of the front doors. Their protective bubble collapsed as microbots flew everywhere, white-hot flames against a backdrop of black sky as he tumbled down layers of hard stairs.

Between the tears smearing his vision, the coughing from the smoke, and the blood pounding in his ears, it took Robert a while to realize what he and Tadashi had been thrown into.

And out of. Robert lay dazed on the brick walkway, flashing red and blue lights above him, and firemen rushing around him, toward the building.

Hearing agonized screaming from somewhere off to his side, Robert turned to see a smoldering body writhing a few feet away from him.

“TADASHI!” the tiny Hamada boy screamed as he fell to his knees by his big brother. Robert choked on a chuckle as the boy yanked off his hoodie and started patting out the flames covering his brother’s body. Despite his own sobbing and his brother's screaming, Hiro put out half the flames in what felt like a blink.

Robert wondered how many robotics experiments had literally blown up in their faces, for Hiro to be so proficient.

EMTs swarmed around the boys, and a moment later, Tadashi went limp. Whether he passed out from the pain or someone gave him something, Robert couldn’t tell.

Not that it mattered, he supposed.

In the chaotic light from the burning building, Tadashi looked almost asleep – save for all the burns covering him, the blood all over his face, and his little brother sobbing in terrified relief over him. Eyes burning from the smoke and the failure, Robert turned his head away. Someone in an EMT uniform appeared above him and said something, but Robert had no idea what, and couldn’t care less.

Looked like the universe was giving him another chance to avenge Abigail, after all.

**Author's Note:**

> Please let me know what you think! I accept concrit, and would love to hear what you liked or disliked the most. :) Also feel free to point out any typos or errors.
> 
> This is going to be a bit of a writing experiment for me - I'm normally a very heavy planner, but I wrote and posted this in a burst of inspiration. I'm going to try the opposite of my usual writing method (re: "pantsing") and see how this goes.
> 
> [Come say hi on Tumblr!](http://nyxelestia.tumblr.com/) ♥


End file.
